Child Health

Child Health

Every year we provide free, comprehensive medical care to hundreds of thousands of children. We strive to ensure that children have access to basic rights and services that have virtually eliminated deaths from common childhood ailments in rich countries.

Challenges facing children in resource-poor settings.

Each year, nearly 6 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths are caused by conditions that are preventable or treatable, including pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and malnutrition. This means that every day 20,000 children are killed by conditions that could be prevented or cured with simple, affordable remedies—vaccinations, bed nets, food, clean drinking water, and antibiotics.

About 600 children are infected with HIV each day, the vast majority of whom reside in poor countries. Most of these infants could be protected from infection through effective testing and treatment—as they are in wealthy countries, where mother-to-child transmission of HIV has been nearly eliminated.

Child malnutrition also has a devastating impact on children in poor countries world-wide, contributing to premature death, stunting and damage to physical and cognitive development.

Our Response

PIH strives to eliminate this unnecessary suffering and death by ensuring all children have access to health care, food and education — all foundations for a healthy, productive life.

In Haiti, PIH Canada has supported the construction and operations of pediatric facilities at hospitals in Mirebalais and St-Marc, enhancing staffing, equipment and quality of care for children and infants. Through the use of mobile malnutrition clinics that reach into the most remote communities, we are providing malnourished children with care and access to Nourimanba, a locally produced peanut-based, high-calorie food. Community health workers serve as a bridge between the mobile clinics and health centers and hospitals, ensuring proper patient follow-up and links to more specialized care for the most severe cases.

Lunie Lozama, a 2-year-old malnutrition patient, plays peek-a-boo while standing by her mother at their home in rural Lascahobas, Haiti. Photo by Cecille Joan Avila / Partners In Health

Our Impact

When he was 17 months old, and extremely ill, Lovenyou Pierre's mother, Jodanie Louis, rushed him from their home in Boucan Carré, Haiti, to PIH's University Hospital in Mirebalais.

After eight days in the hospital suffering from a fever and diarrhea, he received his diagnosis: severe malnutrition—a typical case in Haiti, where 1 in 5 children are starving and 1 in 3 are stunted because they don’t have enough to eat.

After eight days in the hospital suffering from a fever and diarrhea, he received his diagnosis: severe malnutrition—a typical case in Haiti, where 1 in 5 children are

starving and 1 in 3 are stunted because they don’t have enough to eat.

PIH doctors and nurses immediately enrolled Lovenyou in our malnutrition program. Every week, his family took him to the PIH-operated malnutrition clinic in Boucan Carré for a check-up.

With each visit, nurses weighed and measured Lovenyou and supplied

When he was 17 months old, and extremely ill, Lovenyou Pierre's mother, Jodanie Louis, rushed him from their home in Boucan Carré, Haiti, to PIH's University Hospital in Mirebalais.

After eight days in the hospital suffering from a fever and diarrhea, he received his diagnosis: severe malnutrition—a typical case in Haiti, where 1 in 5 children are starving and 1 in 3 are stunted because they don’t have enough to eat.
PIH doctors and nurses immediately enrolled Lovenyou in our malnutrition program.
Every week, his family took him to the PIH-operated malnutrition clinic in Boucan Carré for a check-up. With each visit, nurses eighed and measured Lovenyou and supplied Jodanie with Nourimanba, the nutrient-enriched peanut paste PIH manufactures for malnourished children.
Jodanie religiously fed Nourimanba to Lovenyou three times a day. Within four months, he had gained weight and grown taller, and was well enough to run around with the other kids in his neighborhood.

Every week, his family took him to the PIH-operated malnutrition clinic in Boucan Carré for a check-up. With each visit, nurses eighed and measured Lovenyou and supplied Jodanie with Nourimanba, the nutrient-enriched peanut paste PIH manufactures for malnourished children.

Jodanie with Nourimanba, the nutrient-enriched peanut paste PIH manufactures for malnourished children. Jodanie religiously fed Nourimanba to Lovenyou three times a day.

Jodanie religiously fed Nourimanba to Lovenyou three times a day. Within four months, he had gained weight and grown taller, and was well enough to run around with the other kids in his neighborhood.

Within four months, he had gained weight and grown taller, and was well enough to run around with the other kids in his neighborhood.

Please donate and help bring us closer to eliminating deaths due to malnutrition for children under 5 years old wherever we work.